experiments in leading a reluctant writer into the world of writing. plus a few other goodies.

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Can You See Me Now?

I don't want to turn this space into a
whine-fest about Los Altos schools and parents, because mostly it's
pretty good here. First World problems, amirite? But there was this
one other weird thing that happened a couple of weeks ago that I am
still chewing on.

I volunteer in Kenzo's kindergarten
classroom one afternoon a week, 'cause, you know, I'm a good parent
like that. Also, who wouldn't, if they had time? I mean, it's just
Ms. L and twenty-two kindergarteners, and both the state and the
school district have charged Ms. L with teaching all of them to read,
write, add, subtract, and sit quietly in their seats by the end of
the school year. No small task. I'm happy to help.

So let's begin with the facts:

Fact: Ms. L is faced with a daunting
task;

Fact: Many kindergarteners are not
developmentally ready to do any of the things she is supposed to
teach them to do;

Fact: Loud noises give Ms. L headaches.

Considering the facts, it is no
surprise that much of Ms. L's time and energy is spent exhorting her
kindergarten class to be quiet, sit still and do their work. It makes
me little sad, but I guess I can't blame her. She's just trying to do
her job and not get a headache.

At least she has come up with some fun
ways to tell her class to be quiet and focus. She calls, “Simon
says freeze!” and then leads the children through a series of Simon
Says commands before putting them back to work. She sings,
“Bump-ba-da-bump-bump!” and the children drop everything and
respond, “bump-bump!” Or she claps her hands once!--(kids do the
same)--twice!--(kids do the same)--three times!--(kids do the same).
Then she tells them that they're being too loud, and they need to be
quiet and get back to work, for the love of Pete.

I am in the classroom one day and Ms. L
introduces another fun way to get the children's attention. “We're
going to have a code,” she stage-whispers, “That means we'll have
a secret word with a secret meaning. I'm going to use it when I want
you to be quiet, okay? The code is going to be, “Bon jour!”
That means “hello” in French. I'm going to say, “Bon jour!”
and you'll say it back to me: “Bon jour!” And then we'll
all know that it's time to be quiet.”

She practices with them a couple of
times, and then continues, “Or I might say another word that means
hello in another language, like “Konnichiwa!” That's
“hello” in Japanese. Ready, everyone? “Konnichiwa!”

“Konnichiwa!” the class
replies gamely. Kenzo turns to me and grins. He knows that word. I
wink at him and smile appreciatively at Ms. L, but she had already
moved on to “Jambo!” (African!) and “Hola!”
(Spanish!) Fabian, whose mother is Guatemalan, whispers something to
his neighbor.

Ms. L is slowing down. “Hmm. Do I
know how to say hello in any other languages? Let me think...”

I glance around the classroom at the
children. Whose language will she choose? Nellie Yang, Maya Delgo,
and Brianna Chan gaze expectantly at Ms. L, while Hung Nguyen and
Anoushka Nijhawan fiddle with their crayons. Natalya Volfe, never
taking her eyes off of Ms. L, slowly wraps her fingers around a block
that Sandeep Agrawal has just put down. Sandeep is too interested in
the next code word to notice.

I follow the children's gaze back to
Ms. L, who is looking at...the ceiling.

That's when I know.

She isn't stalling. She isn't waiting
for a child to offer a code word.

Ms. L is actually trying to think
of how to say “hello” in another language. All by herself. In a
room full of other languages.

“Let me think...”

“Ask Natalya,” I want to say,
“Natalya's parents are from Kazakhstan. Ask Maya how to say hello
in Hebrew. Ask Sandeep how to say hello in Punjabi.”

“Nope! I guess I don't have any
other code words for you today. Oh, well. Let's practice one more
time: Bon jour!”

“Bon jour!” the class sings
back.

“Very good, class! And I like how
you're being such good, quiet listeners—that's excellent. Okay,
now, you can go back to what you were doing. Very good job,
everyone.”

Wha--really? That's it? That's it?

Wow.

Seven more languages to choose from,
and...I still don't get it. She sees these children every day. She
has met every parent. She has to know the languages are here. How can
she not? How can she not see who she has in her classroom?

When Ms. L said konnichiwa, I
took that as a nod to Kenzo, and Kenzo had positively glowed.
And he's only half-Japanese. Fabian, too, had noticed hola. I
thought that she'd chosen those words for our sakes. Now I revisit
that moment and I am not so sure. She had made eye contact with none
of us—had literally overlooked us. I
had felt it. How had Kenzo and Fabian felt? How had the others felt?

Most likely they wouldn't be able to
articulate what they felt. But I'm sure they were paying attention. I
saw them waiting for her to see them. They must have known that she'd
forgotten about them, somehow.

At least it was equal opportunity
invisibility.

Should I have spoken up? She's the
captain and I'm just a deckhand, here to supervise the cut-and-paste
activity and make sure the boys don't shoot pretend guns at each
other during recess. It's not my place to interrupt her show.
But partly because of my own silence, seven (twelve, actually. I
didn't list them all.) children in the room remained silent and
unseen.

Well, not literally. It's hard not to
notice Natalya the drama queen and Hung the fidgeter. Or Nellie, who goes around telling anyone who will listen that she can read Harry Potter. So Ms. L forgot that some kids
speak another language. So it didn't occur to her to hold them up to
the light a little, to share some authority with them and make them
experts. Why does it matter?

It matters because we all need to feel
seen and valued. It matters because teachers work with human beings,
those delicate, sensitive, temperamental things who need to be
understood each in their own right, in their own light. Teachers have
learning objectives to meet, information to dispense, skills and
attitudes to develop—but they must acknowledge the souls in their
classrooms, as well as the brains. Feeling seen and valued can carry
a student through a lot of difficulties, academic and otherwise.
Feeling seen and valued is a huge motivator. It can nurture a
student's emotional investment in the group, or the class, or even
the subject matter.

Think of what Ms. L lost. She lost an
opportunity to shine a spotlight on Natalya, who usually gets
attention by whining. She lost an opportunity to make a positive
connection with Hung, who hates coming in from recess so much that he
hides when he hears the bell ring—and no wonder. Hung is one of
those kids who vibrates when he's sitting still. He is constantly in
trouble for making noise and fidgeting. In short, Ms. L lost an
opportunity to show her students that she values them for more than
their worksheets and their ability to sit still.

I don't want to paint a negative
picture of Ms. L. She's not a racist. She's not a bad teacher. She
works hard and she cares about her students. She's under a lot of
pressure to cover a lot of curriculum. She juggles three or four
classroom activities at once, keeps a lid on the noise, and makes
sure that all that content gets taught. She notices and acknowledges
her students when they work hard and when they jump up. That's a lot. And this was one moment of one day in her classroom, where most kids are pretty happy.

Still. The wealth of languages
and cultures in her classroom is clearly not on her radar. I don't know how
this can be, but there it is. Maybe as a white woman teaching in an
Anglo-American school culture (not the students, but the teachers),
she just doesn't think about it--in which case, isn't the school partially responsible? Maybe she is so wrapped up in her
own worldview that she can't see the reality of who is in her
classroom—don't we all do the same thing in our own lives
sometimes? Or maybe she's so focused on the logistics of running the
show and getting through the curriculum that the complexities of the
little humans in her class just fade into the background. Who knows.

But in a class where where eighteen
out of twenty-twochildren have parents who speak English
as a second language and/or are members of racial or ethnic um, minorities, I just can't understand how she could have made this particular mistake. It's weird to me. No judgment, of course.

I'll admit, this is a First World problem, at least at this school, aside from the fact that even
wealthy human children are still human children. (Yes, they are.
Believe it.) These kids will not fall through the cracks and end up
in jail because their kindergarten teacher failed to notice that they
spoke other languages. It's highly doubtful that, had she asked for
help with the code words, she would taken the first step to saving a
kid from dropping out of school and dealing drugs on a street corner.
But these children still have a right to be seen and known for what they bring to the classroom--to the world--as individuals. And I have a feeling that not-seeing students is the status quo in
many, if not most, classrooms in America where the stakes are higher and the students in even greater need of being seen.

Oh, dear, I'm starting to go global
with my little classroom incident. I did not mean to do that when I
started, so I'm going to stop here.

1 comment:

I agree, but she most likely is trying to use this as a classroom management technique rather than a lesson. Hopefully she will get to the others a different day, way, time.....And I would hope that other parents working in the classroom who do speak a different language feel comfortable enough to chime in with a similar activity.Do that many kids in the class really speak a different language at home? If so, there probably should be another teacher workday or days focusing on community, culture etc. In Oakland we had to get a CLAD certificate. I would not be surprised if this type of class has not been offered/required in our area. Also, she may have been nervous. I would not be surprised if someone made a deal of it had she spent too much time on this. I personally would think it an awesome opportunity if the kids were willing but at the same time she has a large group of families, all different, with different values, expectations etc. And then there is the administration..........I totally get your point but I can also see, feel, understand how easily this can happen. Maybe it is time for another diversity talk.....if people will support it. In the long run it would most likely even be fine with the test score results :( :)

About Me

I am a writer, a former high school English teacher and a homeschooling mother of two fabulous boys who don't yet share my love of writing. I have made it one of my missions to cultivate writers in our little school.